Around the Network

Happy weekend to you! We’ve just lit the barbecue so I’m typing this as we prepare for delicious smoky meaty goodness.

This week saw my less than thrilling return to the day job, but needs must and all that. As always, my various creative projects have been keeping me sane, and I’m really excited about the new Cover Game feature, as it’s something very different in terms of subject matter.

So without further ado, let’s review what you might have missed this week, then!

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MoeGamer

Super Mario Maker 2: Nintendo Hands Over the Keys… Again – Yes, Super Mario Maker 2 is finally upon us, and despite a few people apparently desperately wanting to start some sort of controversy over it… it’s fantastic. I’ve already built two levels, and I have little doubt that I’ll be building quite a few more… and enjoying everyone else’s creations in the meantime!

The Zelda Diaries: Part 2 – Toys of the Trade – I continue my exploration of Breath of the Wild with a look at how the game handles core abilities and “items” rather differently from its predecessors in the series.

Warriors Wednesday: Pursuing Lu Bu – We finally lay the smack down on the Shu campaign of Warriors Orochi once and for all by clearing their secret mission. Only one more campaign to go, now!

Waifu Wednesday: Da Ji – Da Ji is a nasty piece of work, but thoroughly interesting with it. Those who listen to The MoeGamer Podcast regularly will know that this, of course, means that Chris is very much Into Her.

Sega Ages: Virtua Racing – Arcade Perfect Plus – Virtua Racing has finally come to Nintendo Switch, and it’s a hell of a port. If you had a hankerin’ for some low-poly arcade racing on the go, you can’t go far wrong with this.

Final Fantasy Marathon: Four Warriors of Light – Kicking off a brand new long-term video project! I’m going to play all the mainline Final Fantasy games. Yep, even X-2, XIII-2 and Lightning Returns. And also including the MMOs Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV (spoiler: I’ve already started recording for XI because I know that is a monster of a job to cover!) We begin humbly with good old Final Fantasy I in its rather lovely PSP incarnation.

The Expression: Amrilato – Introduction – You may recall a little while back I wrote about how an unusual Esperanto-based visual novel had run afoul of Valve’s amorphous content policies. Thankfully that situation has been resolved, but I was so struck by the intriguing concept of the game that I knew I had to cover it in detail. We kick off this week with a look at what Esperanto is and where it came from.

Atari A to Z

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This week, we have laser-spitting pterodactyls, malevolent chess pieces and tiny paddles to contend with. Just another week in the life of a retro gaming enthusiast!

Cool Stuff By People Who Aren’t Me

I have been a proud Patron of Paul “Mr Biffo” Rose, the Cheap Show podcast and The Game Chasers for some time now, because all of them put out great content that is worth your support. The Game Chasers are working on a movie, too; their YouTube work has been a little quieter than usual while they get stuck into this, but there’s still plenty of goodness to enjoy there.

Check out some examples of what these fine folks have been up to here:

I’m also a Patron of fellow blogger and consistent ray of positivity Matt over at Normal Happenings, and I’m pleased to remind you all that I’m going to be part of his latest collaborative project: The Characters That Define Us. This will be unfolding throughout the entire year of 2020, and will consist of 52 bloggers from the community highlighting 52 amazing characters from the world of video games.

Check out Matt’s Twitter for the full details of who’s doing what, and further details will follow soon!

And finally, this week I also decided to pledge my support to a fellow small-scale content creator and retro enthusiast. I introduce to you Rob Caporetto, aka hellfire64, an extremely knowledgeable and passionate person with a great deal to say about early computers. His series “Beyond the Scanlines” recently hit its six-month anniversary, so I encourage you to check it out if you’re interested in this fascinating (and underexplored) period of home computing.

All right. Time to finish off today with a trawl through my WordPress Reader as usual; be sure to stop by these fine people’s sites and give them a Like or a comment, as we always love to hear from people! (Unless you’re a jerk.)

Essex: the birthplace of the MMORPG (Later Levels) – Kim’s work on Later Levels is a bit of a fixture in this weekly roundup at this point, isn’t it? This story here was too interesting not to share with you all.

“We” Keep Biting the Hand (DJMMT’s Gaming & More Blog) – djmmtgamechangerdoc pens a really interesting piece that, for me, very much gets to the heart of the whole “gamers are entitled” thing, using several examples from recent memory.

Super Mario All-Stars Question Block (MrGilderPixels) – My dear friend and podcasting partner has been doing pixel art paintings for some time now, including this lovely Super Mario All-Stars question mark block.

Another Geek’s Success Is Not Your Failure: How To Take Your Joy Back (A Geeky Gal) – Megan presents some reassurance for those of us struggling with impostor syndrome and related mental health complaints. Take joy in your own work; it doesn’t matter what everyone else is up to!

Nice Try: Can We Make Things Better Serverside? (Hundstrasse) – Hundstrasse contemplates how surprising and rare it is when people are polite to you after being on the losing round in a game like Apex Legends… and why he wishes things were a bit different.

That’s your lot for now; we have meat to grill! Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and thank you, as ever, for your support of MoeGamer and independent content creators in general. Love you!


The MoeGamer Compendium, Volume 1 is now available! Grab a copy today for a beautiful physical edition of the Cover Game features originally published in 2016.

Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this article. I’ve been writing about games in one form or another since the days of the old Atari computers, with work published in Page 6/New Atari User, PC Zone, the UK Official Nintendo Magazine, GamePro, IGN, USgamer, Glixel and more over the years, and I love what I do.

If you’d like to support the site and my work on it, please consider becoming a Patron — click here or on the button below to find out more about how to do so. From just $1 a month, you can get access to daily personal blog updates and exclusive members’ wallpapers featuring the MoeGamer mascots.

If you want to show one-off support, you can also buy me a coffee using Ko-Fi. Click here or on the button below to find out more.

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